page_title: Gonsalo Garcia
section_title: Childhood
hierarchical_section_title: Gonsalo Garcia / Life / Childhood
caption_attribution_description: English: Gonsalo Garcia is a Franciscan saint from Vasai (Bombay), who died a martyr for the faith in Japan (window pane in the Cathedral of Pune)
context_page_description: Gonsalo Garcia, O.F.M., was a Franciscan lay brother from Portuguese India, who died as a martyr in Japan and is venerated as a saint, one of the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan so venerated. The first Indian born to attain sainthood was born in the western coastal town of Baçaim, later Bassein in English
context_section_description: Garcia was born in 1557. Documents in the Lisbon Archives (ANTT) describe him as "natural de Agaçaim" (a resident of Agashi village) in Bassein. His father was a Portuguese soldier and his mother a Canarim as the Portuguese called the inhabitants of the Konkan. Modern scholars such as Gense and Conti accept the fact that Gonsalo’s mother was from Bassein.
  According to Garcia's companion, Marcelo de Ribandeneira, who became a historian and is considered as the most authentic source on his life, Garcia once told him that his mother was from Bassein and his father a Portuguese soldier. Hence the papal bull declaring Garcia a saint mentions that he was Basseinite (a native of Bassein). As the child of a European father and an Indian mother he was a mestiço in the Portuguese sense of term.
  Garcia spent eight years (1564-1572) in Fort Bassein. The fort was reserved for the European people and their servants. According to the policy adopted by the Portuguese colonial government, any Portuguese who got married with a local woman was given certain privileges. So Garcia’s father was permitted to quit the job and stayed in the fort as a civilian employee, and because of that his family came to reside inside the fort. He studied at the Jesuit school of Fort Bassein and helped in their Igreja do Santo Nome de Jesus (Church of the Holy Name of Jesus), now known as St. Gonsalo Garcia Church. Here Garcia came into contact with the Jesuit priest, Sebastião Gonsalves, who became a friend and guide throughout his life. During his stay with the Jesuits, he learned grammar, philosophy and Roman history.
caption: Window pane in the Cathedral of Pune
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